I was reading about a post on reddit.com/r/theredpill that talked about a study that confirmed how men tend to get more action later-on than women, and how the numbers were justified. This discussion centers around the concept of the sexual market value (SMV for short) of an individual as they go throughout their life. Composed of looks, financials, and knowledge, the SMV for an individual depends on their natural biology, as well as active action to improve their own value. Better descriptions and articles of SMV can be shown here:
http://therationalmale.com/2012/06/04/final-exam-navigating-the-smp/
In general, the hypothesis follows that women tend to gain their highest value as they approach their late teens though their mid twenties. This type of graph was based from well thought out personal experiences of many males, so it could be attacked for its data integrity because of the bias of the individual who created the graph. In my personal experience, I’m finding this SMV graph to be completely true in my day to day life (23 year old male, solid job, improving my value constantly)
But I wanted to know if there was a way to put some science behind the numbers. Which is what the Kinsey Institue has provided (Source at bottom of article). Their study covers a vast amount of information related to the sexual tendencies of individuals, but the two graphs that I focused on are below (snapshots, unmodified, bad quality, but you’ll get the idea with the graphs):
I thought that because my title at work is a Business Analyst, I could take that data and put it in a form that the average indidivual would be able to understand in a snapshot, with some justifications. This is not a graph displaying the sexual market value (SMV) of an individual. What it is displaying is direct results of the the average SMV of the sample size, indicative of the US population. (Note: My apologies for the soft language, can’t have that all over my computer while at work)
These numbers were broken down and weighted based upon the average number of encounters per category (Monthly = 1, 2-3 times/week = 10, etc.) so that we could multiple the percentage by this average to get a weighted value. Those weighted values were then averaged to produce the average number of encounters/100 individuals/month, which was then divided by 100 to create an individual output of # of Encounters/individual. (for some reason my image quality is horrendous, so I’ll look at putting the excel file on a shared drive for people to access)
That finalized information is displayed below:
(Image = Crap, Analysis = Gold)
Those numbers were then put into a display, broken down into the three categories (Single, Partnered, Married). The results speak for themselves, but of course being an Analyst, I put my own words beneath each of them.
Singles Information
Analysis: This is probably the most stark comparison and example of the hypergamy and SMV models combined. It’s very evident from the layout of how women tend to peak with regards to fulfilling their needs before the age of 30, and then experience an immediate drop in number of encounters. The drop-off could be due to many factors (decrease in SMV, decrease in desire for more encounters), but it shows the objective decrease in encounters. For males, you can see how an increase in SMV would result in this data output, with the number of encounters being much higher and sustained between the 30-60 year old period compared to their female counterparts. The differentials also show that the males in the 30-60 year old brackets are securing the women in the 18-30 year old bracket (possibly the 70+ bracket as well).
Partnered Information
Analysis: Partnered individuals are showing a hybrid between the Singe and Married graphical outputs. In comparison to the Single data, Partnered averages track each other more closely. Causation could be due to multiple figures, mainly because an individual is a partner with their male counterpart. In comparison to the Married data, we are still seeing the same trend that the Single’s shows, where women peak earlier than the men, but men show their own peak in the following years.
Married Information
Analysis: This is what I would think is expected for individuals who are married. The numbers should track each other (in an ideal situation, the curves would match exactly). Confirms the thought that as a marriage continues, the amount of sexual encounters, on the average, decreases.
I could do some t-testing, ANOVA, p-value, etc. if need to make some of my statements based in scientific conclusions, but I didn’t feel like it at the time I wrote this. That would add more weight to the analysis that has been completed by my end, but it seemed a little too obvious to get into that much detail. But if this becomes an issue I will gladly create that analysis (and bore to death half the crowd reading this).
So now we actually have some SMV data correlations that is backed by a solid study done by a 3rd party to reduce the chance of bias. Kinda cool when “what you think is probably true” can be confirmed through some analysis of well collected data.
I would appreciate it if someone would confirm my analysis so we can get the data displays verified. Somewhat of a “this guy is full of shit” analysis. I can send the excel analysis if anyone is interested, or can post it if want to look at the logic behind it.
Source of data: http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/resources/FAQ.html#frequency
Reblogged this on and commented:
I’ve never reblogged any post before, but in light of all the attention my SMV graph has been receiving recently this was too good not to. The reason the SMV graph agitates critics so much is because upon first glance (usually the only consideration it’s given) it angers those with strong ego-investments in an equalist / feminized mindset. Because of this, critics jump to the presumption that I’m in someway implying the intrinsic worth of a man or a woman based on where they fall on this graph without any consideration given to the intent of why I created it or its objective purpose. It’s “tl;dr, people are people, he’s a perv who wants to bang 12 year olds, etc. etc. where’s the science?”
I would encourage any critics of this graph to read the entirety of Navigating the SMP, SMV in Girl-World and The Curse of Potential. Until you do you’ll have an incomplete understanding of it.
In Sex, Lies and Statistics I mentioned that the SMV squares very well with existing studies (links provided) but this iconic men post is another excellent example. I have no doubt that every critic will take issue with the source in an attempt to disqualify it, but consider that my graph was drawn as an objective illustration based on an aggregate of male experiences and observations without the aid of the numbers presented here. Again, it reflects these trends with scary accuracy.
I don’t need a graph to tell me what is patently obvious to observe every time i step out of my house. I can conclusively assure you that your analysis is 100% valid here in Russia as well. It’s the same code of neural modules everywhere.
Followed from Rollo’s site. This is pure gold.
As Beast said above.. i never needed this graph to tell me what was already known in my bones.. but it’s good to have such a blunt instrument on hand.
I’m sure Susan probably just spit up all over her monitor if she read this.
I had a graph too.. tho not as scientifically accurate as yours or Rollo’s, but i think it gets points on flair..
I would agree with both you and beast about not needing to do the calculations or display to know in my experience that it’s true. It’s one of those things that I think we’ve always known, but now can validate our approach and theories with the technical backing. Transfers the burden of proof back to the critics, as long as we keep at it.
Thanks for the input, your blog and Rollo’s are something that I hope to emulate with my own experience.
>I would appreciate it if someone would confirm my analysis so we can get the data displays verified. Somewhat of a “this guy is full of shit” analysis.
Rollo’s original chart sucks. P. Z. Myers was correct about that. However, Rollo is a layman grappling with an anthropological phenomenon, so no reasonable person will expect Rollo to produce a good problem analysis off the top of his head.
As for these numbers – I think your analysis is very good, but you’re jumping to the wrong conclusion. (And any fault I assign to this analysis, I will lay at the doorstep of the Kinsey Institute – I don’t have much respect for them as scholars.)
The data doesn’t tell anyone a darned thing about “SMV,” because “SMV” is a hazy, ill-defined, informal bit of slang. Rollo’s heart is in the right place, but he’s no scientist.
You have shown that anyone who trusts Kinsey’s data collection (and many journals won’t) can establish an average increase in sexual couplings for single men aged 30-49. That average increase is a wonderful finding, and you should expand on it, but the more you expand on it, the more you’ll find that Rollo’s original chart is unsatisfactory.
Rollo’s notion of SMP really is bad. It puts accurate-looking numbers on figments of sheer imagination, and it badly conflates anecdotes with data. The Kinsey findings are the results of actual fieldwork, and it so happens that the Kinsey fieldwork confirms many of the anecdotes that Rollo had in mind. That doesn’t mean that we can countenance anecdotes presented as science.
I don’t want to criticize Rollo too harshly – he got the ball rolling, he drummed up the interest. But what you have shown is quite different than the claims he speculated about.
This kind of thing happens in academia all the time. A grey-haired professor puts forth a hazy notion based on anecdotes and conjecture, and then a young graduate student actually crunches numbers to do the real science. In this scenario, Rollo is the greybeard and you are the scientist.
Ultimately, the manosphere can’t take a lot of credit – it’s just re-checking and re-publishing findings that have already been done by field researchers. This isn’t hard-core science here, this is popular science journalism.
Blah, blah, blah. Whine, whine, whine does not count as a comment. The blogger referenced a study and analyzed the information. You need more than whining to counter his logic.
zhai2nan2 makes a valid point. Insofar as we may consider Rollo’s hypothesis corroborated (and assuming the accuracy of this data as it portrays a cross section of Americans), it is corroborated only in the weakest sense. It would be far more interesting to see not only how many are having sex, but how much sex they are having if they do. You might get a better corroboration of his main stipulation, but you might also get a falsification. That’s just a logically possible observation, and until we disconfirm the potential disconfirmatory observation, we have at best a neat if simplistic means of expressing the insight that female sexual attraction burns fast and bright, while male sexual attraction burns slower and longer.
Getting the number on that latter experiment would do a lot more. This is a good start, but it isn’t precisely an observation which could cause a paradigm shift, though it certainly may count as a rumor of it.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that a single paper usually references 20 to 30 or a hundred peer-reviewed studies just to establish that the authors are familiar with the literature. So referencing one study is just a beginning.
If you want to get Rollo into a peer-reviewed academic journal, you’re going to have to do it the academic way.
If you’re not interested in academia, there are plenty of other avenues for publishing. I’m sure Tucker Max would be happy to give you his literary agent’s contact information.
You’re on point about how this is just one study and my personal approach. Moving forward there should be more rigorous analysis of this type of information.
In the coming weeks and months, I’ll look at putting together more studies and help bring to light the different studies and conclusions being made (both ‘pro’ and ‘against’) so red pill individuals can source their feelings and opinions with some information credibility.
There will always be my own biases when it comes to the causation, but my approach is to generate usable charts/graphs/data from third parties so we begin to arm the manosphere with actionable intelligence (not that it’s necessary, but something I enjoy doing).
Appreciate the input, and keep at it.
Technically, that’s a chart of SMV, the two are not equivalent.
To my knowledge/reading, Rollo never claimed any sort of absolute accuracy. I think he would think that ridiculous. Rollo did however claim some level of relative accuracy between the sexes by age. SMV is a poorly defined value, and all humans are different (YMMV) so claims of absolute accuracy have no basis in fact. Rollo probably did exactly what the data here shows, he likely asked men (maybe some women?) how often they got laid at various ages. What Rollo’s plot inherently corrects for, that this data does not, is hormones. Rollo’s plot is normalized such that a man can be “zero” when he’s young, even though his hormones are saying “get laid get laid get laid get laid get laid …” Hormones and social pressure means that simply asking an 18 year old how often he/she has sex will give you an answer that is less than a reliable indicator of market value. More than just sex goes into SMV, and as I said, it’s definition is at best incomplete, and will remain incomplete because everyone has a slight different definition of what they value.
Bryce, let him back it up with facts and analysis or I do not care what his opinion is.
Let me see if I understand who is posting what.
I gather that “iconicmen” is the blogger who did the analysis, and “Legion” is an unaffiliated drive-by commenter.
The original post read in part:
>I would appreciate it if someone would confirm my analysis so we can get the data displays verified. Somewhat of a “this guy is full of shit” analysis.
My critique was intended in that vein. The original author, iconicmen, can take it for whatever he considers it to be worth.
But so far as I can tell, “Legion” did not assist with the research or statistical analysis, and thus whether “Legion” cares is entirely irrelevant.
I wouldn’t worry too much about legitimacy from data, not that it’s at all wrong to properly analyze the situation with data. It’s not, I encourage any and all to attempt to question Rollo’s SMV plot with whatever data exists. I expect most of the data will support it, but you always learn unexpected things from the pursuit.
What I mean is, I wouldn’t worry about convincing others about Rollo’s plot. It’s already out there, and true or not it’s influencing people. Women already know all about relative SMV, they know it instinctively. Female denials of relative SMV are as thin as paper.
It’s more important to tell the younger guys that things get better as they age, and to hang tough and work on their value. Right now society treats young males like dirt and lies to them about what kind of men they should be at those ages. Young women and society look down on them for not being able to get laid as often as the girls. Culture tells them that there is something wrong with them if they can’t get laid as often as the girls they chase. That’s what Rollo’s plot clarifies, it says, “hold on a minute, the positions change, just wait.”
Most guys don’t get that information until it’s way too late, some of them tragically.
Good point Jeremy, I have had that discussion with so many of my male friends who expressed the same relief at the knowledge that they get laid a lot more when they have more to offer the world (go figure, women actually like men for things besides the fact that they have penises!).
Also let me clarify something, from a woman’s perspective – almost all women I know seek sexual activity without much discernment for quality partners in our youth, leading to a profound disappointment in sex in our mid-20’s, leading to a marked drop off in interest later in life.
If you are going to teach your young men that “it gets better” later in life, could you also try to make an effort to teach them what it means to be a quality partner? And also maybe teach your young women to make better selections in their choice of mates earlier in life? Sex would be better. Everyone would win.
Masculinity only exists where challenge does. Where there is no challenge, nothing masculine thrives. Because of this, all you need to do is to tell the younger guys that they’ll get what they want if they work on their value, and the rest will follow.
Young women in todays modern America are so loose and poor character judges because their fathers failed to teach them the great power they would have in the SMP, and the tremendous responsibility that goes with that great power early on. As a result, the natural alphas have a relative paradise right now, but the common man suffers way too much rejection. Those fathers were operating under the assumptions of old, so even they do not bear the entire blame. Nonetheless, everyone likes to blame the boomers, and frankly I can’t find much good they’ve done for society, so I’ll leave it with them as well.
Let me clarify myself… You need to return the world to more of a meritocracy, and the masculine will come back. Right now the developed world is turning towards a socially marxist direction where everyone is equal, and no result is allowed to be unequal. Where men see the ability to achieve what they desire (And make no mistake, a good woman is something of an achievement), they will endeavor to do so. Where society instead tells men that women are equal to them, will earn just as much, and that nothing a man does is worthy of a woman, the men will likewise behave in an unworthy fashion.
The challenge must exist, or masculinity will not. When meritocracy dies, true men evaporate.
What is problematically lacking is the knowledge of what “merit” is based on. Frankly, until I saw it in a man, I didn’t even think it could exist because none of them had ever genuinely displayed it before. I’d seen it done as a put on, a learned act designed to make a good impression to get more play from women. But never genuine.
You’re describing the seduction community’s approach pretty well, focusing on outer appearance and tips/methods, which is really a to-do list, of how to go after what they want. It’s pretty unfulfilling in the long term
(personal experience). Right now this type of movement is interesting to watch and be a part of.
Goal of this post was to bring some ‘objective’ analysis (if that’s possible) to a situation that’s been a very vocal shouting match with deeply entrenched egos invested into the arguments.
We’ll see what happens.
Unfulfilling is exactly the right word for it.
I am thankful that I have the insight to be able to see through it now – like you, gained from personal experience. It is so reassuring to be able to see through the callousness that I used to have a motive to overlook.
Also, the so-called ego-driven responses you get from women about this movement, I think its just a backlash against the extreme negativity being leveled against us, and and against the motives of feminism, in recent years. It comes off like more blame, and frankly, we’ve been blamed for everything since the fall from Eden, so I hope you can understand the frustration behind some of the feedback you get.
I’m sure you guys are pretty tired of being blamed too, but its only been the last few decades for you, and I will acknowledge that yes, it does suck. Welcome to our world!
Anyway, if what you say is true, and its objective discussion that you want, keep this in mind – the negativity is often paired with extreme irrationality (yes, men can be irrational and frequently are), making progressive discussion almost impossible. It reminds me all too much of the first wave of extremely angry feminists, and its just as futile.
I don’t mean this blog so much, but I’ve seen several writers on the topic of mens rights who are so completely impenetrable, immutable, illogical and extreme that any sort of challenge is deemed worthy of a full-scale retaliation. Not productive for conversation!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending women here, I’ve met only a handful of women I’d be willing to date if I were a man, only slightly more than the number of men I’d be willing to date being a women. I’m saying that it is the biggest source of frustration to us that we cannot seem to escape the blame cycle no matter what we do. Blame is not helpful, ever.
And yes, it is interesting. I just hope that it has a point, and a good one, and we get it soon, because I think we’re all kind of getting tired of arguing over the same old things over and over. Sooner or later this has to end.
I hold onto that hope, anyway.
How do you see our current situation as a guaranteed outcome Jeremy?
I’d say we are so far from providing a guaranteed outcome that it surprises me that you would say its an issue of concern. Can you explain this to me a bit better?
Because I can’t see that happening anywhere, in any aspect (aside from maybe “averaging” seen in the high-school educational system, a standard of drinking water quality, and the possibility of the most rudimentary of quality of life).
And I don’t think anyone can honestly say they even want a guaranteed outcome, that would be absolutely atrocious. Its kind of a shame that the equality movement has been distorted into this, because that’s not at all what its intention is. What anyone involved in the equality movement wants, or has ever wanted, was removal of unequal obstacles that prevent equal access to opportunity.
The barriers are most definitely different, depending on birth, and some simply cannot be removed, it would be simply impossible, and not even desirable. But barriers that are based purely on social stigma and stereotype, those are completely easy to remove, its merely a matter of social willingness to let go of stereotypes as our guiding principle for decision making.
Perhaps you see it differently?
I’m under no illusions of needing to be a PUA to become a man. Only a fool would respond to a female population with high-n-count by themselves abusing a reversal of SMV to live the same carousel life that the women lived between 18-25. This doesn’t mean that game or PUA wisdom is in any way useless to men, frankly it begs for a deeper understanding of it’s need.
Society in general is moving towards one where no result is allowed to be unequal. Don’t own a home? There’s a government program that will make sure you can own one by making the taxpayer accept the risk of default. Don’t own nice clothes? There’s a government way to charge up your credit cards and use gov’t protection to declare bankruptcy. Don’t want to pay corporate income tax? There’s a way to pay the right politician to get the right regulations enacted or cut to legally avoid it. Don’t like being fired? There’s a lawyer that will make the threat of ageism/sexism to get you a compensation package. Don’t like being held accountable for failure? There’s an app for that.
No one in the developed world is allowed to fail. From the president, to the banks, to the lowliest Destroit resident, no one is allowed to fail. If there is no defined failure, there is no real success. Where there is no method of achieving a measurable success, masculinity has no reason to blossom.
But that is exactly what is said by so many… Illegal Immigrant activist groups demand the same rights as people who followed the law. “Underprivileged” people in inner cities (of any race) demand taxpayer funds be spent on getting them into college regardless of ability. The tort system tells us that a woman who was too stupid to keep hot coffee out of her lap deserves some kind of monetary settlement. Everywhere you look there is a culture of people expecting a perfect life regardless of how hard they try at anything.
Having lived through a large poor family that required welfare to survive at some points and that was neglectfully abusive of me, and now arrived at a point where I have good friends who come from quite wealthy families, I can tell you that there was indeed a gigantic difference between the rich and the poor, even before the stratospheric separation of rich and poor that we’re seeing since around year 2000. That difference was in parenting.
I confess these days there is a much larger separation going on between wealthy and poor, but most of that I attribute to an explosion of crony-capitalism.
However, the real problem of “disadvantaged” poor people, is shitty parenting. That’s it, it is that simple. You take almost any rich family, and throw them back into the poorhouse, and as long as they maintain the principles they had when they were rich, they will return to wealth again in 1-2 generations. Take almost any poor family, and give them wealth, and you’ll see them collapse into poverty again within a decade. There are too many examples of the latter to even mention. The well-known examples of the former usually take the form of a Bill Gates, who wasn’t exactly silver-spooned but had fantastic parents. The problem isn’t wealth, it isn’t opportunity either because good people make their own opportunities. The problem is shitty parenting, period. Your parents determine your outcome potential to an extraordinarily large degree.
What we’ve come to is a point where people want the “American Dream” but are not willing to spend the time to raise good kids, and want social programs to coddle them when their family turns to shit. That’s what I mean by equality removing merit. When you merit something, you have to have done your homework, legwork, and gruntwork and still come out smelling rosy. Instead we have this idea stuck in our brains that we deserve no negative consequences.
I get your point Jeremy, ineptitude is being rewarded and excellence punished. I don’t like it one bit either, there are serious consequences to this habit. But by attributing this to the equality movement, you are basically missing the entire point of it. These are separate issues here.
The removal of unfair obstacles doesn’t guarantee success. It opens the door of opportunity up to everyone, without regard to their financial status, their color, or their gender, and once the door is open, their success or failure is entirely dependent on the choices and abilities of the individual.
This is an important point, because even now, more than 50 years after the Equal Rights Movement, wealth, race and gender are still considered by many to be actual limitations to ability (oh, if I could count the number of times I hear people say that girls, blacks and mexicans are almost all stupid and/or lazy). If you actually don’t think those stereotypes affect opportunity, you might want to look a little harder. Sure, you’re right, parenting is very much to blame for it, but that still creates obstacles for success, which are EXTREMELY hard to overcome, and in a developed world we like to provide incentive for success. This is that reason the social programs exist, to correct that imbalance.
But I don’t disagree with you in principle, things have gotten way out of control, the social programs have been in place for so long, and there are so many, and more created every year, that they’ve become a bit of a crutch for people now, and what’s more, I doubt the programs are successfully achieving their intended goals. I’m not even confident that they know what their intended goals are. And yes, I do suspect that most of us lazy dumb-asses would be just fine without the crutch.
I just don’t happen to think all the examples you gave are illustrative of people not trying very hard or of being rewarded for things they didn’t accomplish, especially since the very worst and most expensive rewards program is the corporate bailout and tax loophole programs. Get rid of those two, and i think you’d probably find a lot more people have a lot more incentive to go work hard again.
And have you not seen the follow up story on the lady who spilled the coffee in her lap?
Watch this:
https://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-about-the-lady-that-spilled-coffee-on-herself-at-mcdonalds-then-sued-for-millions?c=upw1
@livingtree2013
I don’t agree. The equality movement had specific, necessary goals in it’s infancy. Those have been achieved to a very large degree. Now, much like feminism, it has turned into a cause looking for social sins to “correct”.
As a society we should be defining unfair obstacles, and agreeing on what is unfair, before charging off and creating the exact type of discrimination we initially sought to remove.
I’m not going to pretend that wealth is not an enormously useful tool in generating more wealth. But it is ALSO a result given to those who merit it. If the goal is to provide equal wealth to everyone, then frankly the goal is economic destruction. Race is no limitation on ability, anyone with a sane mind knows this. However gender actually IS a limitation, but both sexes have different limitations. I cannot expect the average female to be a bouncer at a club. Can you imagine the average woman trying to stop a fight, she wouldn’t stand a chance. Likewise I cannot expect a man to be an equally good midwife/nursemaid. The male hooters employee is a joke. There are gender limitations to employment, and failing to acknowledge those, or worse, codifying the prohibition of employee selection based on a desired business model into law is just absurdity.
But social programs are theft. Charity is not. Social programs exist as laws that enable government to take money, by force, from people who merit their earnings, and give them to people who by and large have not merited said earnings. You can’t correct social injustice by creating more social injustice. Most of the large social programs in the U.S. started as a reaction to the great depression. But any historian/economist worth their salt will tell you that those social programs did nothing to alleviate the depression.
I did know the story of that woman. She’s from California, IIRC, so it was news here.
Jeremy,
“As a society we should be defining unfair obstacles, and agreeing on what is unfair, before charging off and creating the exact type of discrimination we initially sought to remove.”
Do we not already, by way of our support or dissent, decide which obstacles we want the government to address? Just because there is dissent, doesn’t mean its the majority that dissented. Or that even if it were the majority, that the majority isn’t wrong. The majority is often wrong, and quite often a really valuable idea is suppressed by the majority, because the majority rarely likes change. Should we just not bother with advancing as a society because the majority fears change?
Just because you can vote, doesn’t mean your vote counts.
Agreed, but voting is probably the least effective expression of political will available to us. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t (yet), but there are dozens of better ways to express dissent or support than voting. Placing all your faith in voting means you only get democratic expression once every four years, when in fact you have freedom to express your support or dissent every minute of every day. And we do, every day.
You make a good point Jeremy on how this type of information should be utilized to help younger males understand where they are in reference to the big picture and provide perspective
What I to not happen is to have guys look at this information and say to themselves ‘Well I can just wait it out and girls will flock to me,’ while they accumulate fat instead of intelligence, wealth and core values.
Amen, to both of you on those comments. It is truly a sad state of affairs for all of us right now. Quality and character is a lost discipline, and I am so pleased to see a movement afoot for both sexes to get back to building our character up, authentically, for the right reasons, rather than at the expense of (or benefit of) the opposite sex (if that is, in fact, what’s happening and not my idealistic delusion).
And I was about to say “hell yes!!” when you said the boomers did little for us, Jeremy, I have often lamented that my parents generation made a sorry mistake when they assumed that my generation was labouring under a very different set of social constructs than they did, and we needed a lot better guidance than our parents were willing to admit, they didn’t warn us of the perils we would face as young women/men because they barely knew of their existence. And my generation fared extremely badly as parents, consequentially. The millennial generation seems to be painfully aware of that failure, it appears, and is making up for it in the best possible ways – by being better parents and lovers.
But then, Jeremy, you lost me with your comment about equality being at fault for the failure of the merit-based system. While I don’t disagree that merit is no longer being rewarded properly, in any construct of our society, the premise of “equality” was never to bring the uppermost down. It was intended to bring the lowermost up. It just didn’t quite work out as well as we’d hoped… There would never be, there COULD never be, complete equality, we all know that, (but that shouldn’t mean different rights for different people).
Male or female, there are always going to be stupid people and people who are determined to be poor, or criminally-minded. And we are, by our nature, driven to “level up”, and that should be OK. Hypergamy is the very essence of a merit-based system! I find it perplexing when I read comments on your forum condemning it, lauding it, and lamenting the lack of it – all of which I completely sympathize with. The thing about it is, it is only positive when it works in your favor. But unfortunately, the standard just keeps getting lower.
But it is not happening because we want to reward the weak. It is because we have stopped working on our character. It became the least important offering we have in the sexual marketplace – I mean, look at the people around you, male and female! Its absolutely depressing. And maybe you’re right Jeremy, maybe we have the boomers to blame for not passing the tradition on to us. Maybe they never even had it themselves.
I did not say that equality removed merit.
I am saying instead that when all are told they will receive equality of outcome, merit doesn’t exist.
Guaranteed equality of outcome = No challenge, no reason to excel.
Guaranteed equality of opportunity = Lots of challenge, everyone has a reason to work harder.
The difference is more drastic than I know how to express.
As a 40+ female, I can assure you guys that the single women my age in my immediate circle have no issues with getting sexual attention from men as frequently as we care to. I have no doubt that we are out of the curve of “normal” for women our age, since we are single and thus anomalies. Single women tend to take be more active, eat better, and are generally happier, more interesting, and more confident than married/partnered women, which to a man makes us so much more attractive. We also are pleased to find that men like us for things besides our bodies at this age.
However, we also are considerably more discerning than we were in our stupid teens and 20’s, when most women were dumb enough to get involved with men who, if we thought about it really carefully, had little to no SMV besides their good hair, tight bods, and physical stamina. As they age, men become far, far more complex and self aware, which to a woman makes you so much more attractive. So men also are pleased to find that women like them for things besides their bodies at this age.
Understandably, women in this group have higher sexual interest than married women. Men, well, sometimes they have some performance issues, in spite of how much interest they have, but fortunately, they usually have some pretty obvious psychological issues that make them easy to spot.
So, I take no issue with the “facts” presented in your article, Rollo. I do have issue with fact that you have narrowed your field of vision too far, seeking a singular explanation for a wide range of human depth. You are assuming that quantity of sexual play can only be related to physical attractiveness, which is the sort of assumption that, I suspect, only a man in his 20’s would make, based on a profound lack of experience in the real world.
I would very much like to see you explore this depth a little more in your articles.
You’ve made a good point that has been voiced in other comments as well, with regards to how the analysis was done in a methodical way, but the causation that I made was not based upon verifiable facts. There are numerous confounding variables that were not taken into account in this study, so my statements of saying ‘here’s the graph, and this why’ could be premature.
I would also agree that although this is the average of the study, I did not look more closely at the variability of the source data points, which could impact the data integrity.
What would be a good course of action is to look at more studies and see if any correlations or causation can be identified to create a composite ‘picture’ of where things are currently, and how it’s changing in the coming years.
Thanks for the feedback.
A very basic question to start with is, Do you believe that men have attraction triggers?
I will define that, so the question is clear. Attraction triggers are any stimulus that prompts male sexual attention. Do you believe that specific (or even any) stimulus exists that when offered to any man, will prompt attention of a sexual nature from that man?
Understand, I am asking a question that I know the answer to, but please play along.
I think Rollo’s done a solid job on flushing out the details about SMV and how it’s ‘calculated.’ This particular data set I manipulated only shows what could be perceived as the ‘result’ of the SMV curve.
That said, the causation for why these trends are the way they are can’t be scientifically defined, because the confounding variables are numerous and undocumented. My own personal reasoning was interjected (which I tried to make clear with the wording), but that’s all it was, opinion/reasoning.
What I’m looking for now is additional studies looking at other information (marriage rates, dating statistics, rape statistics, etc.) to begin to bring light objective information (but maybe not objective post analysis opinion) to something that has been bouncing around in the manosphere.
Lots of good points being made.
@Iconicmen, I research many of those topics regularly – what specifically are you looking to determine? I can post many links for you on those subjects, but it would be easier if I had a filter from you of what you are hoping to plot on the graphs? ie length of marriage vs boob size, etc.
I think a graphic representation of SMV by gender and age would be fascinating, but my concern is that the responses would be inconclusive. I really don’t think most people are very honest about what they are attracted to in another person, or about the nature of their relationships. If they were, I think we would probably have a much higher success rate for relationships.
Most SMV information is based from personal experience and surveys, which are plagued with subject bias. More looking for databases to pull from that cover marriage rates, divorce, abuse stats, sexual assault, etc. things that can be used to look at symptoms/side effects of the SMV graph. Generally going to pull from census data, but there are sometimes studies done specifically on sexual related topics.
@iconicmen, is this the best format to send you this info? Would you prefer direct email? Maybe other readers would like to do their own research on this topic as well, if I posted links here.
Have you given thought to plotting the correlation between SMV and income/education levels? I suspect you’ll find some interesting information there. Here’s the theory:
http://www.livescience.com/29382-younger-wife-marriage-age-gap.html
Right now the links to the data sets would be key, but I’m sure there are studies out there to reference, but I’ll check that link out and see if it can me something to analyze further.
Am I getting too off-topic?
I do appreciate the topic of your post, and your intent on finding data in support/question/disproving of Rollo’s plot. Let me state that up front.
I don’t think your data set is a result of SMV, I think it is a loose indicator of age-relative SMV. I think there are other variables mixed in with the getting-laid-count that cause mis-match between Rollo’s idealized plot and the N.
I think other data sets could be fleshed out that might provide additional insight. However determining the nature of their reflection of SMV would be a great challenge, graphing them in such a way as to learn something about SMV-by-age would be even harder.
Of course I do Jeremy. Everyone has them, not just men.
@livingtree2013
Ok, so please forgive me for the mild condescension there.
I had a reply written, but then I re-read your comment. I think I may have misread you a bit.
I find it difficult to believe that 40+-year-old women have no trouble getting male sexual attention, but human perspective is so limited I’m willing to chock it up to human mind limits there.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with Rollo’s plot, other than it’s impossibly difficult to prove anything from it, much like the Drake equation.
I do outright disagree tho, that men really ever learn to appreciate the random unattached women for more than her body. Men learn to discern between crazy and sane better as they age, and that helps a lot, but realistically we always just want access to the female body. We don’t need women to save us time cleaning/cooking to get ahead at work, a maid/manservant could do that. We don’t need women to help us with our hobbies, usually our buddies do that. We need women for reproduction and their inherent physical beauty. Female mental competence is just icing on the cake to men. It does add value, but we’d eat the cake anyway, and too much icing can actually ruin the experience. This fact doesn’t change with male age. Wife goggles do exist, they exist BECAUSE of how attracted we are to the female body. But wife-goggles must be built up when the woman is young and the man can form a significant mental memory of her beauty.
Oh don’t get me wrong Jeremy, I never said that I get as much attention as I did when I was 20, I just said I still get plenty.
Something you need to know is (I’m sure you are aware of this but I just want to illustrate my point) that at 20 yrs old, the amount of sexual attention that even modestly attractive women get from men is quite impossible for most men to comprehend. Rejection is a skill women are forced to become very very good at, usually very young, so this may be the parent factor in mens increasing SMV (and part of the explanation for why women start learning very young that they are viewed as little more than sex objects…)
I always laugh when I hear men complain about how often they get rejected by women. In your 20’s, all the way up to your 80’s, you guys are all throwing yourselves at us, and obviously the hotter you are the more offers she has to choose from, so the odds of your offer being accepted by a hot woman 20 years of age are like 1:10,000,000!
Maybe things are different these days, but in my youth, guys gave us girls the distinct impression that you’d fuck anything just to get your numbers up. I suspect that wasn’t always true, but it was true often enough to create a lasting stereotype. And if you must know, its the source of much female animosity towards men. My pity goes out for the guys who were more selective, because girls were being hit on so much, so often, and so loudly, that the quiet selective guys didn’t stand a chance. But I’m sure they are getting theirs now, and the hot jock douchebags who got all the girls in school haven’t much left to offer.
So anyway, back to my point.
At 44, I still get lots of attention from men. Admittedly, a lot less than I used to, but still way more than I need. I still get hit on like 3x a day, so I’m down to about 1:1000 offers accepted. I’m sure by 50 it’ll be 1:100, but by then I probably wont care at all, because I’ve also gotten a lot more selective about who I associate with, so the quality of men in my life is a lot higher than it was when I was 20.
@livingtree2013
Oh, I have no doubt of this. Mostly because the few times in my younger and highly pensive life that I attempted to grasp this, the reality of the disparity drove me to suicidal thoughts. I am not joking. It was life-ending-degree-of-painful to attempt to realize how easily women can get what men are bio-coded to want 24/7
I would wager most valid male complaints about rejection revolve around the nuclear rejection which all women seem to practice these days just to ego trip. I don’t think men truly complain about the number of rejections. It’s the “quality” ones that hurt, not the quantity. Women used to be gracious in rejecting men, but feminism turned that on it’s head and now rejection is much much more of a minefield for guys.
I don’t think this, while perhaps true, correlates with SMV though. If you asked me why I would have to think for a while.
I can’t see how it couldn’t, Jeremy, at least in the sense that its being discussed here.
This graph is tying sexual activity to SMV, and that only works for men.
I’m in no way denying that her SMV doesn’t do exactly what is shown in the chart above, that’s obvious to everyone on the planet I think. What I’m saying is that SMV is not the only, or even the most important driver of sexual activity for us.
For men, it is probably directly correlative, because men seem to have a more-or-less constant desire for activity, so SMV is clearly going to be the driving factor that changes your activity level. But for women you need a 3-d graph that shows frequency, SMV, and level of desire for sex, which is the primary driver for our sexual activity level.
Well, for single women it is. Obviously there are different parameters to consider for married individuals.
And I am sorry to hear that it’s so tough out there. Rest assured, it wasn’t much better for guys in my generation either. My parent generation might have had it a little easier, possibly because women started dating late, married young, and often the first person she dated. And because men had more class then. Even though they were plenty more sexist, at least they had manners. Sorry.
Nobody reveres the man who’s pulling 45 year old tail. Sorry to burst any bubbles. No man is jealous of this and no woman is envious of her. If you can incite white hot jealousy by walking into a room from both sexes you’re doing something right. Usually it comes with an attitude and a smoking hot adoring 22 year old on your arm. You’ll never hear it first hand but here’s a secret…. The men qualifying 40+ women with lines like “there’s nothing hotter than a confident woman” was once a 22 year old AFC that’s still running his tired white knight game. He still admires 22yo hotness but has forfeited that for what he feels in his head is “the right thing to do” and that’s women his own age. Shaming 101. If 45 was so much hotter…why is there an industry surrounding anti-aging and why aren’t 22yo hot chicks trying to look aged into their 40s.
Ah, well if white hot jealousy is what you hope to elicit out of your life, then I guess you have a point, you should stick with the 22 year olds. If what other people think is the most important criteria to you in your mating choices, then I know there is nothing I can say to you that will make you see life any differently, you will just tell me that I’m angry about being less desirable, because that’s what you want to believe. Which isn’t the case in any way, I’m neither angry nor undesirable, but I know you wont believe that anyway so I’ll stop trying.
I will admit though, it was definitely irritating to me when I first hit 40 and found I couldn’t pull early-20’s guys like I used to only a year prior (and yes, I had no shortage of interest from them up til then). However, you should know that I looked 32 at 40, so when they asked how old I was, they always thought it was kind of cool when I said I was 39, and marveled at how great it was that I looked so young for my age, and they kept right on trying to get in my pants. But 40 has a whole different ring to it, and so I found it really disheartening when the light went out of their eyes when I said “40” instead of “39”.
So it would appear that, this obstacle is imaginary, in part, and based on arbitrary discrimination on the part of you guys, And explains a lot about why women would lie about their age. I always wondered about that. Now I know.
And I mean, men’s SMV and women’s SMV are not even comparable – yes I’m quite sure that mens goes up and women’s goes down as they both age. This doesn’t come as a surprise there to anyone, least of all women (not that we’re happy about it, but that’s a different topic).
However, if we’re talking about market value, you have to keep in mind that for a woman (at any age), getting sex from a man is remarkably easy, and like anything that comes easy, it doesn’t have much value. So basically, if we are talking about sexual value in economic terms, then in his teens a boy’s SMV is roughly equivalent to a dollar store watch, available everywhere for very cheap, and it steadily improves throughout his life (provided he is working on improving his perceived value). A teen girl’s is valued like a Rolex for as long as she’s a virgin, and it drops into steady decline forever after that.
This stems from a very long cultural history of putting women’s chastity on a pedestal. Seriously. But there is no such incentive for men to be chaste.
I swear, if someone had told me that when I was still a virgin, I’d still be one to this day. I can’t tell you my disappointment when I discovered it after the fact.
Single, Male, 50+, sex 10+ with 3+ women in the 18-25 yr old bracket. I wish I had the stamina I did at 20 – that is my limiting factor, well, that and my “golden goose” – my job and assets that I have to maintain demand time and attention.
I am your age-and-power graph incarnate… Lower right hand corner – but instead of being 35, kick it up another 15 years… It just takes more money, and more power.The women are always available. :)
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And I don’t disagree with you about your cake metaphor, or the crazy factor, but I have to be honest – its not that much different for women. We become more selective as we age, we weed out those that are more trouble than they’re worth, which leads (positively!! This is a good thing!) to selecting mates that have a higher value in the marketplace.
As you’ve mentioned yourself, SMV has so much more depth than just sex. If you’re strictly limiting yourself to talking about what attributes make you sexually attracted to another human, I doubt that ever changes for anyone, male or female. We don’t like fantasize about sex with saggy-assed greyhairs any more than you do. But its safe to say that as we mature, we start looking for different attributes before having sex with a person, that we didn’t bother to notice before.
Its just that, I think, women start looking at those attributes a little earlier than men do
(a defense of necessity, as pointed out in my last post, not because we’re inherently better).
Fascinating discussion between Jeremy and livingtree. I’d just make the following observations:
1. Women in their 40s can still generate interest from men… if they are still reasonably attractive. And some women (not all, not even most, but some) can maintain sexual attractiveness into their 40s.
2. The caliber of men that even very attractive women in their 40s can attract is not nearly as high as the men she could attract in her 20s or even in her 30s.
3. A woman in her 40s, active in the dating scene, is not as valuable as younger women. The 40+ woman will be pressured for sex early and often; even by average and below average men in her age group and below; and will be NEXTed if quick, easy sex is not forthcoming, The 40+ woman might be more discerning, but it doesn’t necessarily mean she can be more selective.
And I would point out that the 40+ woman still wants the very top men, because there are many more attractive 40+ men than there are attractive 40+ women.
The top men in that age group can date considerably younger, and they do. The only way a woman in her age group can get a top man is with fast, easy sex; and even then she will not keep him, because that man will be a plate spinner, and she merely one of his plates.
@ Livingtree:
Something else I’d point out is that upthread, you said that confidence was something men found attractive in women; and that women are much more confident at 40 than they were when younger.
If you mean “confidence” as “knows herself and understands herself better”, I agree that’s generally true of most women and that more women know and understand themselves better as they age. But that’s not confidence, and it doesn’t make them more “attractive”.
Attractiveness for women still means at 40 what it meant at 20: Your looks, then your youth, then your personality. Attractiveness is mostly looks.
Men are not attracted to confidence. Confidence is a masculine trait. Confidence is not “knowing and understanding oneself better”.
40+ women who are reasonably attractive are still players in the SMP not only because of attractiveness, but also because of a perception of sexual availability and experience. These women are more sexually available because they can be (no fear of pregnancy or social stigma) and because they have to be (they have to put out early and often to stay in the game and get the top men). If they don’t want to have quick sex, they’re limited to the lower status men, lower earning men, divorced men with kids, etc.
Lots of good points there deti, applying a lot of TRP logic to the discussion. Appreciate the input and perspective.
I don’t think I can strenuously argue against your basis premise, Deti, I’ve already admitted that the quantity of men interested in my diminished startlingly as soon as the little hand in my biological clock turned from 39 to 40. However, I can absolutely assert that the men in my life now are of a SUBSTANTIALLY higher caliber than they were in my 20’s! Or even in my 30’s! Same can be said by almost every woman I know in my immediate circle. But that could be because we are obviously awesome, and have worked hard on our own intrinsic worth as humans over the last 20 years, rather than simply relying on our looks like so many girls do.
The essential trouble with being an image-oriented woman is that you get into relationships based on your looks, and when you lose them, as you always do, you also lose your husband, and if you haven’t worked on your own value as a person, you have nothing left when that happens (except maybe half his money). But you’re fat and ugly and old and you have nothing to offer the world, and only the worst quality of men will be interested in you because they have limited options too.
But I really have no clue what you’re talking about with confidence. Deti. I would appreciate a better explanation of your meaning, because every dictionary and website I can find would say otherwise. I suspect the difference is because we’re coming at this topic from different angles – you are talking strictly about the basic function of sexual impulse, and what makes a man want to see a woman naked. In that regard, I’m sure you’re right, a woman’s confidence matters very little compared to her physical assets.
I, however, thought we were talking about SMV in a larger sense, in which confidence is very much relevant. As in, if I were simply a half-way attractive 45 year old divorcee with a low paying job, four kids and a grade 11 education, I doubt my prospects in the SMP would be anywhere near what they are with the life I’ve built for myself.
Sorry to be so harsh, boys, but as much as you think we don’t impress as we age, you must always keep in mind that you don’t impress like you did when we had less to offer.
Which reminds me, that is another reason why young girls are so much more attractive – they are easier to impress with money and status. This isn’t a revelation I’m sharing here, most older men know it too. Which is kind of ironic…young girls are actually less of a challenge, and I always thought that men liked challenge… as long as the challenge has nice firm tits I guess.
Interesting, but I am still not convinced so-called SMV exist in the real world
@Primate, I’m inclined to agree with you.
I think SMV is a strictly social construct. We are taught what we are supposed to want in the opposite sex, and it confuses us when we find people sexy that don’t fit the customary mold. But truly, most people are attracted to a wide range of different things, even things that don’t fit the social model of what is supposed to be attractive according to the “traditional model” that this SMV formula seems to be trying to work out.
I know that there is a select group of people who believe that they should want the traditional version of sexy, and they will never want anything else besides that version of sexy. They will oppress any desire for things that deviate from the “norm” and they will try to enforce that norm upon the rest of us, the rest of us who have been shamed for unorthodox desires because of the oppression of the conservative/traditional/stereotypical/normal.
I honestly don’t think there is much merit in deliberately working on becoming more sexually commodifiable, unless the market you are trying to appeal to is the conservative/traditional one. Their desires are very predictable and easily addressed with enough status and surgery and material goods.
However, if you work on becoming a better person and developing strengths of character and health, you will find that you suddenly reach a much broader audience, which isn’t really the same thing as SMV necessarily. Perhaps they may not be the audience with perfect hair and teeth and boobs, but nevertheless…a larger audience of less-traditional people is much more appealing than a smaller audience of traditionally perfect ones.
I could be wrong though.
Also, sexual frequency relates to so many things besides this so-called SMV, that it almost seems like a pointless exercise to try and plot a relationship between the two things because it really presents a very limited picture of a very complex equation. Is the point of analyzing SMV intending to find a way to quantify it? Like a points rating system or something? SO we can go forth and state with certainty that if A Person wishes to have more sexual options, here is a quantifiable list of things they must change in order to do so? Are you hoping to one day be able to eliminate the ambiguous and extremely personal aspect of sex?
I like your well thought out and elegantly written comments, Livingtree. No doubt you are one of the high quality women of your age in real world. Best of luck in the SMP!
Many many many people argue, succesfully, that female peak is really 16-20.
(flex)
I have cre8ed this graph
and I would love to hear your opinion on it.
I believe it is 99,9% accurate
Thx in advance and merry X-mas
.
Hi there, thanks for the input, and interesting graph. Keep up the work and get some more excel file input.
Note: funny how after she passed away, attractiveness increased.
Well, I am a raging necrophile.
Happy New Year!
A womans sexual value decreases drastically after early twenties. This is a fact, it is accepted by everyone